Above the Great Dao

Chen Shi slowly awoke from his physical body, opened his eyes, and sat up.

Granny Sha breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly asked: "Little Ten, what happened? Were you captured by other ghost gods or imprisoned? Your father is worried sick about you! Your mother is heartless, she keeps saying you're fine..."

Chen Shi remained calm and composed, saying: "Aunt Qiutong, I'm fine. Don't worry, just a little mishap occurred."

Chen Tang quickly stepped onto the altar, feeling he was too impatient, and slowed his pace, nodding gently: "It's good to return safely. Your mother is worried sick, always believing you had an accident in the underworld."

Granny Sha glanced at him, sneering inwardly, knowing it was Chen Tang who kept urging her to summon back Chen Shi's Primordial Spirit to prevent mishaps, yet he pushed the blame onto Wu Qingyu.

Chen Shi stood up, familiarized himself with his body, and said: "Dad, I'm fine."

Chen Tang gazed at him, noticing some changes in his son; the previous exuberance had diminished somewhat, replaced by a touch of maturity.

But Chen Tang quickly felt that Chen Shi seemed unfamiliar with the body, his walking movements not as coordinated as before.

Luckily, it wasn't long before Chen Shi got accustomed to his physical body.

He had grown used to being a skeleton these past days, always feeling he could deconstruct into bones and reassemble them from afar.

Sadly, the physical body couldn't be used in such a manner.

"Dad, Aunt Qiutong, is the demon in my body thoroughly extracted?" Chen Shi asked as he stepped down from the altar.

Black Pot ran over, wagging its tail, barking twice at him, showing affection. Chen Shi had been apart from it for many days, and it missed him dearly.

Chen Shi squatted down to hug its head, but Black Pot freed itself from his embrace, smearing his face with saliva.

Chen Tang descended from the altar, feeling somewhat jealous of their closeness but remained composed, saying: "Not yet. We've extracted a hundred and two demons, but the Soul-searching Bag isn't enough, so we had to stop and search for materials to refine more Soul-searching Bags."

Chen Shi laughed: "I see. You're not hiding anything else from me, are you?"

Chen Tang replied calmly: "No. You should go home; your mother is very worried."

Chen Shi agreed, released Black Pot, and said: "Dad, let's go back together."

Chen Tang shook his head: "I need to help Aunt Qiutong clean up. Black Pot, you take him back to Huangpo Village."

Chen Shi nodded gently and left the underworld with Black Pot.

Chen Tang watched them leave, while Granny Sha said from behind him: "You're still keeping secrets from him?"

Chen Tang replied blandly: "If I don't, what can I do? Should I tell him, during the demon extraction, a Disaster level one appeared?"

Granny Sha couldn't help but shiver hearing this, recalling the moment during the demon extraction.

The extraction had gone very smoothly, with Chen Tang making various preparations and practicing multiple times. As Wu Qingyu had predicted, all sorts of situations arose, like increasingly powerful demons emerging, and the appearances of Twin Demons and Triple Demons.

But they were able to handle these incidents.

The Triple Demons were especially dangerous, with "Chen Shi" growing three heads on his body, allowing him to fight in all directions without any weaknesses and forcibly breaking through the barriers set by Chen Tang, Du Yiran, Azhuo, and others.

Had it not been for Huo Dou's timely appearance to block him, he would have escaped into the mortal world!

If that happened, the three demons would scatter and flee, making it extremely difficult to capture them.

Afterward, everything went smoothly until a different "demon" appeared within Chen Shi.

This "Chen Shi" was unlike other demons that would awaken to devour heaven and earth; instead, he was calm and courteous, casually chatting with everyone. If one didn't know his origins, he might have been considered a scholar.

He demonstrated an Illusion Sky Phenomenon, full of stars, spectacularly brilliant, covering thousands of miles, turning everyone's faces pale.

Huo Dou personally appeared, and just as everyone was preparing to engage in a life-and-death battle, that "Chen Shi" seeing Huo Dou decided there was little chance of winning against both the people and Huo Dou simultaneously, and withdrew voluntarily without contention.

Granny Sha and others examined Chen Shi's Sea of Consciousness, discovering the abyss had closed, yet the "disaster" still lay deep within Chen Shi's Sea of Consciousness.

Unable to deal with this disaster, they had to abandon further demon extraction and let Granny Sha summon Chen Shi's soul for revival.

"The abyss in Little Ten's Sea of Consciousness should have its demons thoroughly extracted, but we're uncertain how many disasters remain inside. Hopefully just one."

Granny Sha said, "But the greatest shock brought by this disaster was the starry sky he displayed."

Stars filled the sky, unrivaled in their brilliance.

This sight profoundly impacted them, particularly the Five Great Evil People!

Granny Sha, Du Yiran, Hu Xiaoliang, Qing Yang, Qiao Zhuo, who once explored ancient mysteries alongside Chen Yindou, sought relics from the True King Era, and researched the realms of Tribulation Crossing and Ascension, indeed discovered many things differing from current cultivation systems. Especially when creating the Void Great Realm from the Returning Void Realm, needing star maps.

Star maps are divided into Star Chart, Star River Map, Four Palace Map, Central Sky Map, Cycle Map, etc.

They found many records of this kind, studied thoroughly, gradually completing star maps. Consequently, the star maps used by Du Yiran and Qiao Zhuo to create Void Great Realm differed from other cultivators.

Chen Yindou and Chen Tang were the same.

However, the starry sky displayed by the disaster "Chen Shi" was different from the starry sky they assembled according to star maps!

The arrangement order and position of stars, as well as the Four Palace Map's configuration and shapes of the Star River, even the Cycle Map, were different.